October 6, 2019

27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Habakkuk...Move us from Fatalism to Faith

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

In the three year cycle of Sunday readings, today is the only time we hear from the prophet Habakkuk. Interesting name, Habakkuk...I have baptized infants with many creative names, but never Habakkuk! He lived 700 years before Christ during a time of political and religious chaos for Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar captured and destroyed Jerusalem. We can understand then, his lament, his complaint, to the Lord: “How long O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen. I cry out violence. You do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin? Why must I look at misery? There is strife and clamorous discord.”  
 
I think we all have our own “Habakkuk Moments”-- times when we lament that God has not heard our prayers or intervened in our lives. It causes our faith to wane and we become discouraged.
 
The apostles were no different. Today we hear their plea to Jesus: “Increase our faith.” They had faith but they knew it was weak. This is the plea of those who witnessed Our Lord’s great miracles—the dead raised to life, sight restored to the blind, hearing granted to the deaf! They lived by the Lord’s side, and yet, they ask for greater faith!
 
The fact that we are here at Mass demonstrates that we possess faith but also that it is a faith we seek to strengthen. Life’s burdens and struggles, the disconcerting mysteries we so often question, can weaken our faith.
 
In such moments, we can hardly expect support from our culture, which is very skeptical and cynical about religion. The skeptics and cynics ask, “How can you be a person of faith when there is so much wrong with the world, so many evils and suffering?”
 
Fr. Henri Nouwen calls such an attitude, “fatalism” and he warns us not to fall victim to it. He says, “The opposite of fatalism is faith. Faith is a deep trust that God’s love is stronger than all the anonymous powers of the world and can transform us from victims of darkness into servants of light. After Jesus drove out the demon from a lunatic boy, his disciples asked him, ‘Why were we unable to cast it out?’ Jesus answered, ‘Because you have little faith. I tell you solemnly, if your faith were the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, move from here to there and it would move; nothing would be impossible for you.’ (Mt. 17: 19-20)
 
In our “Habakkuk moments,” let us repeat the prayer of the apostles: “Increase our faith.” We must step back and trust. This means having a lively and literal sense of God’s reality, of his power, and his benevolence. This is the conviction that must take root in us.
 
St. Ignatius of Loyola expressed this so well when he prayed:

O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of your presence, your love, and your strength. Help us to have perfect trust in your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten us or worry us, for, living close to you, we shall see your hand, your purpose, your will through all things. Amen.